Copains de Liberte
by Re Lupa
Summary: The weapon was fired. The world was emptied. Pokémon no longer exist... or do they? When Lysandre won, he won everything; but perhaps he overlooked something.
1. Chapter 1

_Éleveur d'Agents,_

 _We have found them. Proceed to the jewel,_

 _strike for the fallen._

 _Yours faithfully,_

 _Copains._

* * *

The paper was carefully torn into strips, into shreds and buried beneath the roots of an ancient tree. Dark clouds hovered just over the mountains. The man brushed dust from his overalls and stretched, face lifted to the sun.

A shadow of a cloud hid the light.

"Come, Coeur."

Nothing was left behind. Only light, ringed depressions and rounded bootprints lingered in that silent forest hollow.

A light spray of water covered the greenery, leaf and branch. Two small shapes hurried into thick clumps of bush as rolling thunder disturbed the eerie silence of the forest.

 _-stonetostonestonetostonestonetostonestonetostone-_

His hand rested, pale and flawless, on a crimson velvet armrest. Each finger rose and fell like a wave as the man stared into nothing.

A thick shuffle of cloth and steel drew his attention away, to the closed doors decorated with swooping figures of serpents in polished gold. They were crafted to be enormous, matching the ceiling that arched overhead, draped with warm velvet and crystalline chandeliers. The golden light threw a cheery air over the otherwise sombre court.

Unimpressionable steel-blue eyes slowly fixed on the fidgeting guard.

To the credit of the armour-clad woman, she did not hesitate or flinch away from that stare. She stepped forward and bowed, long spear held perfectly straight as her arm twisted awkwardly beside her to keep it in that position.

"Sir." She straightened after a moment. "An agent has returned and wishes to hold your audience."

"Send him in." The king kept any eagerness from his voice with practiced disdain.

The doors were slowly levered open, dragging over the rich carpets. A young man strode in with a confident tilt of his bare chin.

That swagger all but disappeared as Lysandre easily stepped up and away from his throne. Thin drapings of gold and crimson finery spread behind him like wings as the king approached his man. The agent audibly gulped and bowed as if hinged at the waist.

Lysandre contemplated him, with a tilt of his head. His left hand clapped the boy on his shoulder, and he favoured him with a light smile.

"You have done well. Rise."

His hand slipped back to hang at his side, and the king turned. The curtains had been drawn but hours before, and the light of morning warmed him like no fireplace could.

"Your report."

"Sire."

The hallways echoed with hurried footsteps and strained voices. The king turned a corner and flicked his cape away from his arm for what felt like the thousandth time. He knew that only the threat of banishment held his assistants back from attempting to physically restrain him. They still required his frosty glare as one of them foolishly stepped a little too far in front of his long stride.

"Sir. Sir! Please, if you could look at-"

"Please, sir, remember your-"

"No need to rush sire, no-"

The last door between him and the object of his fury. The king swept the flock of pandering servants back with a powerful arm and lifted one corner of his lips to show a singularly sharp canine. "You will not enter unless I give the command."

That annoyance pacified, he pushed the glass-paned door open with a loud _bang_. Several weak-kneed men and women leapt to their feet and staggered as the king strode past their stations. He ignored the futuristic computers, the fantastic flowering plants growing in their plastic cocoons and stormed up to the one dark room at the other end of the compound.

A king did not deign to _knock_. Still, the man knew how his people worked, and he pushed the door open without slamming it into the delicate glass cupboards arranged by the doorway.

"Lysandre."

"Celosia." He didn't need to smile.

The slender woman peeked up at him from her lounging position by a computer screen displaying their old 'Team' symbol. At least, he assumed she was looking at him. The scientist's visor glowed purple in the dim light as she slowly, languidly rose to her feet and gave an elegant curtsey. "And to what do I owe this... honour... your majestic highness?"

"There's more of them."

"More of what?" A tight smile on the one half of her face still showing betrayed her knowledge of his answer. Lysandre crossed his arms, reveling in the familiar strength of the pose. Celosia's smile dropped, but the confidence in her body language didn't waver for a moment. "Ah. Them."

"There weren't supposed to _be_ survivors," the king muttered. A light touch on his arm drew those cold eyes to the fresh purrloin-purple polish shining on her delicate fingernails.

"Variables always exist," the woman said. Her hand corrected the crooked position of his cape and she turned to close the door. Darkness swept over them, and Lysandre hated how comfortable it was to be shrouded in it. "For the billions that lived, only our select few remain. _Your_ select few."

He shook his head and felt his carefully arranged hair sway with the movement. "That is a lie. Yes, my Flare lives on- but so do those various _delinquents_ ," the king snarled, "who continue to pollute my perfect, my _beautiful_ world."

"And they won't do so for much longer, my king," Celosia said, pursing her lips.

The light changed. Lysandre looked over his shoulder as the scientist swayed down to press select buttons on a minimalist keyboard. The screensaver had been replaced with a shaky film of another dark room, the view moving along in the hand of a man in a thick green coat. Something trickled from a high corner in the video and he turned to observe more closely. A strange shiver ran down his spine.

Celosia waved her hand across the screen. Lysandre noticed a small blinking light at the monitor's base and stiffened imperceptibly. His hands dropped into the folds of his cloak as the man in the film finally stopped shaking his camera about and set it down.

"My lady," the shadowed man said, heavy breathing translating as static between each word. She didn't bother to respond and instead motioned the king forward. Lysandre restrained his amusement at her bold dismissal of his- what- position and did so. He didn't know this man, but none of his scientists would have a common grunt report personally, in such a secretive place. "Your- your highness! My humblest- um- apologies, Grace-"

"Stop making a fool of yourself and give him the good news, you fool," Celosia said directly into the camera.

"Lord- I've found their _nest_."

Silence. Lysandre found his arms were already crossed, and he lowered his chin to hide a growing smile in the luxurious faux fur of his coat.

* * *

 **A/N: Hello, community.**

 **This isn't my first fanfiction, but it is the first under this name. Welcome!**

 **I find it comfortable to have a place I can connect with the reader, but my notes will not be at the top of the page, distracting from the story- such as it is. If something confuses you, please be sure to check here, at the bottom of the page, first. If I do not provide the answers you need, feel free to message me privately.**

 **This will be a short story, but a sweet one. I'm only planning around 6-7 chapters, so every moment of those chapters should be full of some interesting things to read over. I sincerely hope you will enjoy what I'm writing here, and I ask that you feel free to comment on my technique.**

 **Thank you for reading the first chapter, and I believe this will all become clearer soon.**

 **Happy hunting!**


	2. Chapter 2

The morning dawned on resting bodies.

One of them stirred with the fresh, cool breeze that blew from the south-west. Wide nose twitching, it hopped to the side of its partner and laid small paws on the sleeper's face. "Spoooiiii," the grey beast whispered. With a small grunt, the human opened its eyes.

They had chosen a reasonable place to sleep. His clothing was not waterproof, but it was resistant enough to keep the rain from soaking into the many under-layers beneath the loose, tarp-like cloak. The man lay there a moment longer, watching the golden light twinkle in the loose raindrops that dripped from the pine needles.

"Oink," his friend urged. It didn't wait for him, leaping in a long movement to keep look-out on the ridge of damp earth protecting their temporary hiding-place.

"Alright, Coeur," he muttered. And regretted even those two words.

They watched for a time. No movement, no sign that their presence had been spotted. And he would know, Owen assured himself. No pokémon could sneak up on him.

Not that many hadn't tried.

Their journey had been longer than some, but shorter than hope had dared. Owen could only thank God that he hadn't been on the other side of the country, that the letter had been found by his spoink's clever nose and not some intrepid Flare lackey.

That _they_ had been found. He didn't know what to think of that.

His feet pounded on soft leaves. This was a tricky spot to cross, in partial view of the old route way. Coeur didn't leave much sign of its passing, but they were still careful to walk- or bounce- on wet leaf detritus where they could. Owen hadn't seen the sun long enough to estimate how far they had already come, but they had approached the edge of the forest the previous night.

Another rise up ahead. He dove to his hands and knees at its base and wriggled up, peering over the edge. The sudden roar startled him, but Coeur wiggled its ears and snorted to draw the man's attention to the right- up, and up, at the brilliant blue of mountain rapids.

Ah. Water.

Owen gazed down at the stream of icy water that rushed through the tall ravine, rolling and scissoring in violent bumps of white froth. The roar was louder as he leaned over to get a good look. A tiny grip at his pant legs assured him that the little grey pig wouldn't let him fall.

Jagged rock stood an onix-length above the river, and there wasn't a bridge in sight. The sight of the wide, gaping mouth of rock, empty and silent aside from the hissing bubbles... it filled him with a kind of emptiness, too.

"First river, Coeur," he said to his partner with a grin.

The spoink nodded carefully, rolling its pink pearl in the small depression between its ears.

Owen wasted no time in taking out one of the more useful gadgets his friends had provided. The device looked deceptively simple; a round, silver-grey teardrop that weighed the hand like a large stone. He set the rounded end in the dirt at his feet and carefully aimed the point at the opposite cliff. Once placed, the man pressed firmly down with his left thumb on its rounded middle; the point _exploded_ out with a thin cord trailing behind it.

 _Thhhhink!_ The cord was planted. Owen gestured to his partner and tested the cord with an open palm. It swung freely, and he quickly stamped on the half of the gadget that had remained on his side of the ravine.

Right. Always remember to activate this end, too.

It buried itself and, he assumed, dug snugly into firm rock. Now set on both sides, the black cord inflated until a thick tube of rubber hung out over empty space.

Coeur had hopped to his side, but now the great view seemed to trouble it. Owen watched, wide-eyed, as little fins of something shiny and strong-looking spread from the tube. It certainly didn't look like a bridge- but it did look like something that could hold his weight. Wow.

"Science is... amazing," he managed.

The grey piglet refused to 'hop' across the high-tech bridge that wiggled like a snake with each frosty blast of air down the ravine. Owen couldn't hold him and crawl across at the same time, so he was forced to hold the little beast in its pokéball. Something like fear curled in the traveler's chest with the bright flash of red, and he was quick to move across, deactivate the Crosser and flee with the warm ball in his hands.

 _-stonetostone-_

Only four years after the apocalypse.

Four years since the forced call to the Holo Casters, the warning- no, the declaration- of the world's D.O.A.

No-one reacted at first, Owen remembered. Everyone just went quiet. The city of Lumiose was still, silent as a spiritomb. He had looked out the window of his apartment and spotted children playing with the leafy skiddos, men and women holding hands as they pointed out fancy kalosian landmarks.

One girl in particular was wearing pink. A small smile lit up his face as the man remembered, staring unseeingly into the darkness beneath the trees. A pink dress. A sandy yellow sunhat.

It had been unseasonably hot the weeks prior. He had been drinking a glass of- ugh- city water.

But then, Owen had a call. He had been a procurer and advocatee of well-loved, well-bred pokémon, and his visit to Kalos was mostly for business. A rich little princess had wanted her own snubbull, and she wanted it _now_. Her father had been reasonable, allowing for one to be selectively bred and raised for the tender hands of a tenderfoot...

But he'd had a call.

The breeder had left his temporary home in a hurry, not eager to stay and absorb the befouled mood. It must have been a prank.

Owen had only been given a Holo Caster the day before, a free gift from someone dressed in questionably bright red. Or orange. He wasn't really one for colours.

The device didn't have any friends or contacts in it yet, but the message had seemed directed towards the region as a whole...

Owen had suddenly wished to be home, in Unova.

A slight sound brought his attention back to the present.

Two rivers into the trip, and the sun had set on his spray-soaked back as the breeder crawled his way to dubious safety. Without his spoink, Owen didn't feel comfortable in the swiftly darkened grove that stood on the lip of the cliff. He had grown used to the piglet sniffing out trouble.

But the light was gone, and the flash of a pokéball could bring a legion down on their heads. The traveler wasn't truly afraid for his own safety, but Coeur...

Everyone knew what happened to pokémon that were found by Flare.

Now he crouched in a hollow he had dug out beneath the spreading branches of a mountain pine. The needles were soft, but his skin had developed an unfortunate, itchy reaction to the strong-smelling stuff. Owen scratched his ankles as his eyes flickered over the inky blackness of the outside world.

Nothing. Silent.

 _Still_ , he thought, _that doesn't mean I'm safe_. _A poor survivor can't be trusted to wield a little spoink, but the world-killers can set a grown houndoom on children_.

Canines had some of the best tracking skills in the world. Owen knew that.

When the silence stretched on for what felt like years, the man slowly began to relax. There was a slight breeze from the nearby ravine, after all, and the early nights beckoned in the first cool winds of the cold season.

Perhaps something frozen had crackled up in the canopy.

Owen sat himself down and leaned back, relaxing the tension in his lower spine. These nights... they were so quiet.

 _The heat of an enduring summer, far too into winter for the comfort of the long-furred furfrou that populated Lumiose' streets, had the young man sleeking his hair back and out of his face. It was probably disgusting to use sweat instead of water or oil, but Owen figured that there wasn't much difference. It wouldn't be proper to wear his favourite bandana in such a fine place._

 _His hand rested on a carriage-case that sat beside him, keeping the cage from rolling into the doors of the taxi. A disgusted snuffle came from it. "I know you don't like it, but be patient, buddy," the breeder crooned, leaning to see through the little door._

 _Owen could see the crease of a wide grin on the cheeks of his driver. He couldn't stop a grin, either._

 _"Shnuuu."_

 _He sat up and watched with interest as the city rolled by. It was always relaxing, somehow, to see the world through a window. Something that loosened the knot of something in his gut that always pushed for more, to improve, to be better._

 _Smiling people. Laughing people. The little orange and blue birds that seemed to have such joy in their sweet songs._

 _Owen loved little birds._ Fletchwing _, he thought._ I'll catch one of those and take it home _._

 _The privileges of a breeder probably stretched to shifting customs regulations around a little._

 _"Aaand this is your stop!"_

 _He gave a start. There it was! The fabulous mansion of a skyscraper, the home of his current patron. Owen counted out the credits owed to the driver and grinned a goodbye, remembering at the last second to seize the pink puppy brooding in the backseat. He bounded up stairs- marble, really?- and entered into a luxuriant lobby that immediately blasted the sweat from his face with primo air-conditioning._

 _"Aah," Owen managed. Wow._

 _It was a blur of faces and professional smiles after that._

 _Eventually_ , the man thought as his fingers rubbed the rash on his shin, _I went downstairs_.

 _Why the little girl was downstairs, he never came to know._

 _Owen was ushered into what looked like a laboratory, filled with machines and people dressed in white coats. The walls were metallic and the ceiling an off-white, which gave him the heebie-jeebies as the breeder walked on past people who looked very busy, indeed._

 _The portly shape of his current employer appeared in his dark navy suit, rising like the sun among the pale eggheads. Owen smiled and stepped forward, hand outstretched._

 _"Mr Seillouet; Mr Seillouet! Over here!" The older man half-turned to reveal a deathly white face, the beginnings of greyish shadows round his temples and eyes. The effect of this was oddly skull-like, and Owen paused in his tracks to stare._

 _Those eyes weren't in the friendly, detached expression the breeder had interviewed over videophone five months since. They were... empty... terrified..._

 _A deadly chill had run up the young man's spine._

 _And then the walls began to shake._


	3. Chapter 3

"AAAAAAGH!"

His heart was trying to rip out of his chest! Ears ringing, the tingle of blood on his tongue, Owen's heart tripped again as he realized what his voice was doing.

The scream was muffled. Something with the taste and texture of a burlap sack was stuffed in Owen's mouth.

Hands waving blindly in front of him, the breeder sat up and swiped the thing from between dry lips. He hadn't been restrained, so he kicked his feet and pushed back against the rounded edge of the hollow. Eyes blinking furiously, Owen noted that sunlight was blazing into the dugout. And someone was sitting there.

He stared. The other person stared back.

Eventually he had to blink, but the stranger didn't move. Owen took the chance to rub one of his eyes while keeping the other wide open, carefully brushing soil from the palm of his hand.

Now blinking freely, the breeder slowly sat up and edged onto his feet. A quick flicker of the fingers on his left hand found the warm surface of Coeur's ball, still magnetized and safely tucked under Owen's shirt. The thing- actually a filthy piece of burlap- had fallen to rest on the pine needles. He allowed a moment to glance at it.

"Sorry." The man nearly flinched. His odd companion looked pained, when Owen hesitated long enough to look the stranger over. The other man licked his lips and rasped out another "Sorry."

"Why... are you sorry?"

Scruffy greyish hair fell down the side of the stranger's face. It almost looked like a comb-over, if not for the wild, uncut style that every homeless survivor grew. Olive green eyes flicked up, down and up again as Owen shifted to be a little more comfortable.

The stray coughed a little, hunched over his gloved hands. He kept that pose for an entire minute.

His fingers were cooling rapidly in the shadow of his back, buried in the soft dirt behind him. Owen brought them out and blew on them, flexing his hands and forming fists with a tightly-held indifference. Another minute passed, and the weird guy's back just shook a little. Almost as if he was...

"Hey... are you crying?"

The breeder knew he was reaching, showing a soft belly full of emotions and love to someone who'd probably snapped in the first year of hell. He regretted opening his mouth as soon as the stranger peeked up through gaps in his greasy hair.

There was something in those eyes... something Owen hadn't seen for...

Cracked, dry lips spread open in a smile that dripped little drops of blood. A puffy tongue slipped out to nip the droplets away before they hit the pine-scented ground.

"I know you. Do you remember me...?"

 _-stonetostonestonetostone-_

"...Owen Rose?"

A perfectly flip-tipped nose sniffed the air like an affronted cat, eyes hidden behind brilliant orange sun shades.

"We only need his bio-signature, Holly."

Manicured fingers handled a delicate model of the Holo Caster, pressing several discreet buttons on its glassy sides before setting it down on the dark wooden table. A hologram flickered above it, the basic arrow and smile icon revolving on its axis.

Holly took a moment to straighten her fringe. She stole a glance at the two men waiting somewhat patiently at her little desk. "Why him? He doesn't sound familiar."

"Just," one of them sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Just do it. Do your job."

She quietly arranged the Holo to search for surnames and hid another sniff in one of the machine's little bleeps. R. Not such a popular letter. Her nails tapped the desk as Holly bit her lip in silent determination.

"Rose. Edgar, Elizabeth, Eren-"

"Owen." The shortest of the men, swathed in a thick robe of a peculiar shade of peach, leaned over the desk. Holly slid her chair back with her small nose scrunched. The little man didn't seem to notice her revulsion. "Grady, take this down. No tech in the field."

Grady was already punching keys into a small keyboard built into a heavy steel watch. He lowered the arm and nodded, switching to paper- which the rude man took from the pile of paperwork awaiting Holly's signature. "We can synthesize this. Get it to-"

"Grady."

The lady hadn't bothered to be discreet with the perfumed handkerchief covering her nose. Her eyes narrowed beneath thick plastic lenses as the two gave each other significant looks. "I assume this may be finished elsewhere?"

The robed weirdo took his partner's stolen paperwork into a secret pocket of his cloak and nodded to Holly. "Thank you, miss. The kingdom is in your debt."

"May it rule in perfect beauty," she said.

Grady gave a short bow and followed the other man, who didn't even wait to hear the customary farewell. Holly sniffed once more, disgusted- and sneezed into her handkerchief.

"She was less intelligent than the usual morons around here," Holster muttered. "At least she knew how to press Holo buttons. Grady."

"Hey," said the taller man, easily keeping stride with his rather marshmallow-like partner. "It takes a university degree to even keep up with one of the lower-level eggheads. Anyone could've missed that tiny switch."

"That 'tiny switch' is bigger than your miniscule comprehension."

"I'll agree with you the day your comprehension exceeds your miniscule mind, you psychopath," Grady said with a light grin. They shared a smirk and stepped around a green-haired kid running down the halls with a newspaper in his hands.

"For future reference-"

"And Holly is smart," the tall man said. "She took that job from someone two years older, and four times as educated. You can't replace born potential."

Holster sighed. "Let's just read that report. You can regale me with the girl's _prospects_ some other time." He pulled the paper out from his cloak and straightened it out against the wall, ignoring his partner's rather whiny protests.

It was written in chickenscratch, but each bullet point held a goldmine of information.

"Hmm... heart condition... Rose has a little ticked-off ticker, it says. I wonder how he's kept going out there, on his lonesome," Grady grunted, leaning against the opposite wall. His dark brown eyes were focused on something outside, jaw working beneath stubbled skin. Holster continued to read the paper, hooked nose nearly rubbing oil into the precious words.

"He must have met up with a doctor, somewhere. Must keep them close by."

"If he's still alive," Grady said. He pointed at nothing and let his hand drop. "Why this one, anyway? If he's dead, a corpse isn't going to advance us any further than what's left in the cities."

His short friend didn't reply. He didn't need to.

"Owen Rose..." Holster mused. "29. Brown hair and eyes. Medium-to-slight build. Breeder class."

"Frail," said his partner with a sigh. "Heart problem. Probably curls up and dies at a mild electric shock."

"Unova." A finger tapped the paper as Holster looked up, staring at the opposite wall. Grady looked at him and smiled. This wasn't a happy smile.

"I had some friends in Unova," the taller man said quietly. He tucked his chin against his chest and folded his arms, a simple metal disc the size of a fingernail rubbing between his thumb and forefinger. The paper crisped as Holster tucked it away again, eyes fixed on his partner.

"You had friends everywhere. You're too easy to hurt, Grady," he muttered. "We have clearance for level one, so drop off your tech and requisition some transport."

The sandy-haired hunter didn't move for a long moment. The old coin rolled over and around his fingers.

"Grady."

"Holster," the taller man said back instantly. "You don't need to baby me. I'm a grown boy."

"I'm not seeing our chopper, 'boy'." He leered, spreading his lips wide to show all of his teeth. "Did you want to go on foot, go on a journey to prove yourself a real man?" The caped man nearly tripped over his feet at the light blow to his shoulderpad, hands leaping to grip a nearby rounded pillar.

"Someone forgot to take their milk this morning." Grady gave an insufferable grin over his shoulder, already at the end of the stone corridor. "Let's see who clears for action first, slowbro!"

Holster climbed back to his oversized feet, taking the time to scan his nails for chipping. No need for haste. Leave that to the oversized powerhouses, and the mental activity to people like him. The hunter nibbled at his thumbnail.

No. Holster shook his head for emphasis and smoothed a thumb over the offending nail. No room for the broken.

No room for ugly.

 _-stonetostonestonetostone-_

Owen stared.

It fit. He couldn't believe it, but the rattled creeper of a human being was sitting right there in front of him, telling him who he was. No-one in this country knew his name. Not even the camps, not even the small city that had rebuilt itself in the safest location known to free man.

And now, as Owen watched the scrawny survivor lick blood from his lips with that awful smile, he realized something. This guy...

"I think I know you."

That dead rattata's-nest of hair, the faded aqua still lingering on the tips. The three thin scars that ran under the stranger's left eye. Saggy shoulders, a cocky tilt of his head, that infuriating twist of his lower lip to show teeth without smiling-

The survivor nodded. He winced at the movement, as if something in his neck pained him, and looked back down at his feet.

Owen took the pokéball from his waist and enlarged it. The ball settled into his palm. Though every movement, every hint of a jawline and cheekbones told the breeder what he suspected was true, there were no chances he was willing to take. The mission was too important. Vital. His jaw clenched and he activated the pokéball.

A bright flash of white light nearly blinded him in the gloom of the morning forest. Owen hid his eyes behind a thrown-up arm and nearly yelped at the solid weight suddenly digging into his stomach.

There was a sharp blur of motion. Something gleamed, whipped through the air like a scythe. An angry spoink rammed its head into a dirty, bandaged chest.

Owen blinked away the bright spots in his eyes. A knife was buried in the earth by his left foot. The stranger was curled around his stomach, covered with pine needles. Coeur hopped tentatively between them, snorting from its wide nostrils like an angry tauros. The pieces slipped into place and the breeder shot back up to his toes, palming the knife with one hand and replacing his partner's ball to the belt with the the other.

Hot, fluid anger rolled through Owen and he duck-walked to the prone form of the wildman. The knife didn't fit well in his hand, but it didn't take a scyther to know which end was pointiest. "Why did you- you idiot!" He was glad that the guy couldn't see the angry tears burning up his eyes. "Coeur could've killed you!"

The survivor mumbled something. Owen prodded him in the back with a foot, unnerved. He wondered, for a moment, if someone might have heard the scuffle- but his spoink was at his side and nuzzled his arm, pearl softly glowing.

The tight feeling in his chest abated. The breeder took a breath, and side-walked back.

"Look, I don't know why you want to hurt me. But I'm not an enemy. I'm- you know me! You knew my name!" His whisper broke somewhere in the middle.

This wasn't too much. No, he could take this. But should he?

There was something he had to do. Owen couldn't waste time with random killers in the woods. He glanced at his loyal piglet. The little creature was brave. It had tears in its eyes, too.

"I have to go." He felt stupid, saying anything to the stranger. "I'm- we'll meet again one day, and maybe you can get the help you need."

This earned him an incredulous glance. Owen pretended not to notice that shocking resemblence to _someone he knew_ and ducked out of the hollow. His friend bounded at his heels, and the two began to jog away.

No-one was waiting for them, in the trees or over the next ravine. Owen's heart beat steadily in his chest and he threw the knife into the last of the rapids beating over the rocks below him.

* * *

 **A/N: Hello, community.**

 **I've seen some follows and a review for this short story. I'm pleased to know that Copains has been fun to read!**

 **Please note the new cover image, which directly relates to the fate of many in this story. I did not take that picture from someone else; I painted it myself. Not to 'toot my own horn', but I was excited with the result and decided to use it for the official Copains de Liberte's cover.**

 **Thank you for reading. Please enjoy your time here!**


	4. Chapter 4

Holster found himself curling into a very _worn_ pair of headphones. Despite the influence and buzzing minds of the Flare advancement machine, the headset only barely protected his eardrums from the earth-shattering thrum of blades slicing through the early twilight.

The heavy end of something quite deadly sat between the hunter's knees, skin unfeeling around the trembling whitewash. It was a feat of engineering for the helicopter to fly as swiftly and true as it was; the short man licked his lips and glanced out the window again as one of twenty iron-bound crates nudged against the fingers wired tightly into his seat cushion.

Harsh white fluorescence lit every line and edge of the helicopter with a brilliance that hid absolutely nothing. He was glad, at least, for the incessant buzzing to be lost in the interminable din of their transportation.

A hand roughly joustled his shoulder. Holster reared back against the straps tying him down into the metal contraption. He only snarled- noiselessly- at the unrepentant grin of his partner.

The stubbled chin of the taller, _athletic_ man moved with his mouth, the skin around his yellow aviator sunglasses stretching into an almost comical look of confusion.

Holster let himself hiss into the silenced microphone before activating it, doing so with a slow, deliberate flick of his small finger. "... **What**."

" **The pilot**... coming **in**... **below**..."

The floor juddered beneath their feet. Holster occupied himself with glaring at the gathering dusk outside.

" **Just** so... **that Xerosic**... going **to land**. See... **interesting**?"

" **Grady, I can't hear you. Speak up or shut up**."

A tinny laugh echoed over the headset. It was so distorted that the constant static fritzed into a short, high-pitched shriek.

Grady leaned back against the thin material of his seat, pulse settling to match the thrum of the chopper. It wasn't easy to watch the only partner who'd stuck around be reduced to a clutching, frozen mess the minute his leatherclad feet left the ground. Harder still to master the impulse to toss open the sliding doors several hundred feet in the air and run the rest of the way to Frosty. But then, having a mission always seemed to smooth out the rhythm strip.

His knee was still bouncing from the pass over the outskirts of what used to be Lumiose. The rattling machine seemed to hide it pretty well.

Thoughts of the destination helped to focus Grady's attention away from where he was- soaring without a thing to stop a sudden shutdown, nothing to catch them if they fell- but it was always relaxing to rile up the little fool in a cape.

So long as Holster wasn't irritated enough to hold a grudge.

Forests, green and unimpeded, clumped below. Like children gathered around campfires. The sight of them brought a smile to his face. Clear waters and open plains blanketed the world with a freshness, a purity that spoke directly to the hunter's heart.

It seemed to Grady in that small moment that they were observers of a world beyond the past. Astronomers seeing the planet as a whole creation, all at once, for the very first time.

Nothing grey, purple or viscous.

Nothing that moved.

Nothing.

A voice crackled into his left earphone and Grady raised a finger to it, shoulder tense.

After a minute of staring into the bulkhead ahead of him, the hunter nodded and grunted an assent. His hand dropped to his side, laying on the white steel buckle resting against his crimson jeans. The thick, padded tip of his gloved finger tapped the side of a metal ball the size of an oran berry.

Grady stared down at the earth as it turned to grey and white below. He squinted.

Huh. Could've sworn that... there must be something reflective buried in the snow, catching the last of the light.

Nothing alive down there.

The hunters bore away in their flying machine, leaving the mountainside behind. Silence fell as snow on the rocks, the scent of fuel fading as quickly as it had come.

 _-stonetostonestonetostone-_

His thoughts spinning, Owen barely remembered the last ravine and river they had to cross. Coeur hadn't gone into its pokéball this time, seemingly determined to keep its friend from running into any predators.

The trees had been left behind with the previous crossing and their extremities had grown numb as the day wore on. His spoink was careful to bounce on bare rock and to avoid the slick, icy puddles. Owen eventually took the piglet into his arms and they warmed each other in that way. Coeur was light, and the heat of the human's chest kept both of their hearts going.

With feet down on the other side, the two were almost at their destination. Mountains sprouted from the ground like frozen flowers, impossibly high, and a constant whirling of snow made the air glitter in the sunlight.

This sight struck words back into the breeder. "Incredible... it must snow here every day of the year!"

A kind of lightness, an airy-headed wonder filled Owen and he stood unmoving until the spoink wiggled out of his arms.

"Sshhpooiiiiinkk," it chattered at him.

"Oh. You're right." The sun was going down and the mountains were casting long shadows, an early night beginning the evening chill. His arms prickled with the intense cold, and Owen rubbed his bare arms. "It should be just a little further up. Can you handle that, buddy?"

Owen wasn't too worried about being overheard on the open plains leading up to the snowy peaks. The true issue was the potential to be seen; greens and blues stood out on this bare rock like the rings of an umbreon. He glanced down at his mud-covered hiking boots, scuffed and worn but holding steady on the rocky scree. If Coeur signalled that something had caught sight of them, he would sacrifice his protective tarp and abandon it on the mountainside. He would feel better if there was something more that he could do.

A harsh gust of icy wind blew his hood off, ruffling the breeder's hair. Owen screwed up his nose and brushed cold particles out of his face, shoving his hands back into pockets with a loud huff.

It was still colder back home.

The first stars were glowing ominously above the range, the sky so clear you could almost reach up and scoop the moon out with your fingers. It was occurring to Owen that perhaps they could have waited for dawn when a series of excited grunts drew his eyes back to his frost-covered partner.

The spoink snuffled with its face pressed to the ground, spring twitching in a half-upright position behind it. A very faint pink light shone from the pokémon and the breeder started. His boots slogged through a shin-high snowdrift as Owen lunged to the piglet's side, wrapping noodly arms around it. The glow subsided swiftly, but a greater cold than early winter stole the breath from the man's lungs.

"Why- Coeur, that was _stupid_!" Owen said, hissing through his teeth.

It was truly dark now, the faint purples leeching out of the corners of the sky. The skin of his arms felt like they were being flayed, shred by shred, and the temperature was still dropping.

Coeur was a cold, unmoving lump and Owen stroked its back, brushing away the ice frozen to its fur. The spoink's heart was beating rapidly, and the man did his best to rub circulation back into its skin.

It wriggled. His fingers wouldn't move in time to grab Coeur before it slid into the snow.

"Spoi!" The spoink yipped and leapt over the wet slush. It hopped, bounced and gestured with its tiny paws, pearl almost vibrating between little grey ears.

Owen tucked his hands under his elbows and approached his eager friend. Coeur's eyes shone in the starlight and with something else, too; at the man's look of polite-yet-approaching-frustrated incomprehension, it snuffled its huge nose and the pink pearl on its head lit up.

 _Soft thoughts, like warmth, like sunshine, like the taste of berries mixed with jam and cream on freshly baked bread_... little fingers reached through the backs of his eyeballs. It felt incredibly dry, a dusty finger stroking his very cornea like the paralysing lick of a ghost.

The man's eyelids wouldn't close and the tears that welled up from the conflicting sensations froze on his cheeks.

 _Look... inside... look... inside..._

"Look." Owen's voice was flat. He stared at the spoink.

"Spoink."

"Inside... look..." His head turned to face the ground Coeur pawed so fiercely. The moment Owen's eyes unlocked from the forced gaze, he gasped.

The breeder wavered on his feet. The touch was gone, withdrawn like a wet plunger. He was suddenly very aware of stinging in his eyes, and Owen staggered a step towards his little friend.

Gradually, so painstakingly slowly, the burn melted into a kind of numbness. The breeder tucked his arms into his belly and blinked, squinting at the dark snow.

It was cold. The water on his tarp had frozen, and it tinkled behind him. Like bells- _like delibird_ , he sniggered. Imagine, waltzing into a Flare base, bringing presents and good cheer. Coeur could light the way. He wouldn't mind.

Owen wondered if bringing a sled would have been a smarter idea than trying to find the- the thing- the little hidey-hole. With the maps.

And the food. The last thing he ate was a wild mushroom. The safe kind.

Probably.

Something was making a noise. The breeder scrunched up his nose and waved his head from side to side. Huh. That made it sound different. Like the world was spinning... spinning... spin...

sp...

 _-stonetostone-_

His sight returned.

It came back in speckles of light, a blur of colour. A pale, pale hand slowly reached up to rub at the skin around his eyes, fingers massaging the temples in an attempt to stop it. Stop the ache. Ah. That was cold.

His arms felt unusually heavy. A warm thing dragged up with them in the movement towards his face. It was nice... but now his feet were cold.

A soft groan came from his throat. It was kind of sore, but the sound didn't hurt at all. A high-pitched sound made its way straight through the man's eardrums and he winced. Ow.

The sound repeated, but it was closer, and it wasn't so loud. He lay there in that pleasant warmth, determinedly ignoring the deathly ice slipping past his toes, until a wet _something_ pressed up against his nose.

Owen's eyes opened in a start. A massive grey nose blotted out the sky.

"AAHhh- ah- ahhgh? Co- Co..." He gaped. "Coeur?" The nose pulled back and revealed a pert little piglet with a thoroughly pleased expression.

It hopped on the spot. "Spooiiiiii! Spoink, oiink!"

They were... in a room. Wood, carpet, stone ceiling. Curtains made of dark green material, soft in the shadows lining the walls. As the breeder sat up nice and slowly, a cottony patched blanket slid down his front and pooled in his lap.

He felt fine. He'd never felt better, in fact.

Even the reddened beginnings of frostbite had faded from his arms.

Owen's eyes slowly shifted back to his pokémon. A very faint, stiff smile curved his lips. "Spoink. What's going on?"

It rested on its spring, the slight rise and fall of its little grey body almost hypnotic. "Shhhppoo. Poink, sppo."

The breeder gathered the blankets around his midsection- glorious, soft, he wanted to smash his face into the woolly goodness- and stood. The extra height would get his point across all the sooner. "Where are we?"

Coeur waved one of its little arms at the wall behind its human. Owen turned, careful not to mix his feet up with material and trip.

This one was made of brick, a camp desk set up against it and a lamp showing several sheets of browned paper. Lines and symbols seemed to cross the pages. At the sight of a tiny compass drawn in one of the corners, Owen's eyes lit up. "Is- is this...?"

His chest felt funny. Not tight this time, but still strange. The breeder scrunched his fingers against his ribs, sparing a glance at his partner. The spoink wiggled its ears in contentment and sat back to swing on its spring. So... not bad, he supposed. It actually felt kind of warm. Kind of light.

Oh. Owen let out a giggle. That's what it was.

A bright peal of laughter could be heard from the surface, if one was lying with their ear pressed to the ice in wait. But no, there couldn't be. It was all too rich.

The breeder sat with a quiet thump, blankets tangled in his fists. His face was split in a wide smile. That feeling of wellness almost _glowed_ , and Owen luxuriated in it, stretching like a persian on the carpet. He hadn't felt anything this soft in... two years? Had the pillows and soft things faded so quickly?

A soft sigh perked up the ears of the piglet and it peeked at its master. The man was, once again, asleep.

Coeur's nose twitched as a thin line of saliva dripped from it, pooling between woollen fibres. It wiggled, and hopped, prancing on the thickly coiled muscle that propelled it into the air. Good, for Owen to sleep. Rest further. Remove the damage.

The spoink's eyes shone with their usual cheer, but the droop of its eyelids belied that energy. Gently, carefully, Coeur approached its human and tucked its small body against the wide, loud barrel of his chest.

The little pokémon let itself relax. There was something special about Owen. It knew that. That particular, rapid thump and swish that spoke to Coeur in a language that it always understood. It knew that it had a purpose, and that its human was important beyond how much it cared for him.

It hoped that Owen would understand this, as he always had. A nice human.

Maybe he wouldn't be mad to know that Coeur hadn't saved him from the snow alone.


	5. Chapter 5

Thin, dry wisps of cloud hissed through the vibrant blue. Formless, they ringed the distant peak of everwinter.

It was an empty void between snow and sky. If one were to rise some great height, black would bleed into the brilliant atmosphere. Silence was king on these lofty heights.

Long streams of air, whips of frozen rain wound their way about the bastion of rock and earth. The tiny particles of ice sparkled in the noonday sun, falling in a shower of diamond dust.

Snowdrifts as tall as a man had piled up against the wire fences outlining flat tarmac and concrete. The well-groomed figures in cinnabar orange strode around the gleaming piles, stiff-legged, tailed by small black canines.

The hush that seemed almost deafening among the empty, dead plains was cut through with a loud shout.

Hands pointed to the snow, the suited humans gave their dogs an indistinct command.

A huge flare of heat suddenly billowed before them, flowing up the snow and funneling into a fiercely burning tornado. The black dogs gaped their muzzles wide, paws planted against the thrust of power blasting from them. The fire combined and split over and over again, the flames at the edges of the blaze curling against each other in tiny, shining tendrils.

As one, the firesparkers relaxed and the heat surging from their small bodies went out, swiftly as blowing out a candle.

Twisted wire and the ringed barbs strung along the fencetop glowed cheery yellow. Echoes of the dog's harsh cries faded into the open air, and they stepped back, stiff as the ground they stood on.

Water dripped from somewhere high up, blown into mist long before it hit the ground. The shouts from the compound continued into afternoon, pausing for the humans to sip from steaming cups of chunky vegetable broth. Their pets waited with no deviation from the stern expression fixed on their faces, eyes bright under a protective cap of bone.

A thin, crispy edge of dried snow broke away from a distant glacier and the small drift tumbled. Crumbled chunks rolled into the depths of a deep blue crevice.

If the clear northern sky had not been empty of life, perhaps something would have been seen fleeing over the far curve of glacial ice.

 _-stonetostonestonetostone-_

Fog blurred the line of water creeping up the sides of a glass. Resting on old newspaper, warm yellows and whites played over the cup and desk. A shadow flickered between it and a lantern that cast light in a comforting, fuzzy dome.

The young man who sat there drew invisible lines with his finger, scruffy head resting in his opposite hand. Browned papers stretched from one side of the camp desk to the other, corners bent from where they had been left on the desk's edges. Squiggles and lines ran beneath his finger, which absent-mindedly circled a particular group of contours.

A soft blanket was laid over his lap, and a sleeping spoink, too.

Owen squinted in the low light. The pressure between his eyes was building, but no light massage of his temples had seemed to help. His hands were instead relegated to holding up his head, and the sore muscles of his neck were thankful for it.

It was time. The journey had been... well, not so difficult. A few river crossings, sleeping under trees in a late autumn shower and running into a survivor from the old world.

It was a shame how very _new world_ the poor guy had become.

A battered collection of lined sheets lay waiting by his elbow. The words 'Plan Outline' were scrawled at the top, but not much else below.

Owen let slip a light sigh that hissed between his teeth and sat back, rubbing his eyes.

That message, the one sent by the biglies. It was swimming behind his eyes, repeating over and over in a line of words that never ended.

He was _Agent Breeder_ , silly as those words sounded. It sounded better in Kalosian. Mount Diamante was only half a day's climb, and now, in this hidden cell of the _Copains de Liberté_... Owen had never been so prepared to strike against those _murderers_.

The only issue was sitting innocently blank.

Owen didn't have a plan. He didn't have an inkling of a plan, and the realization of this was what had driven him to sit up and work when all he wanted to do was sleep.

The prerogative of an agent was to improvise, within reason. His mission was to find _them_ , and _they_ were almost certainly awaiting rescue in the depths of a laboratory buried in the ice.

Flare would be watching every sign of movement in the open snow plains. He couldn't just dig a tunnel with his bare hands. Barring frostbite or discovery, Owen hadn't laid eyes on his true destination once. The furthest North they'd ever come was back towards old Laverre, certainly never past Dendemille. Not even in peacetime had the breeder ventured into what was arguably the most inhospitable place in Kalos.

The only thing Owen knew for certain was that, _potentially_ , a high-security compound may be placed somewhere up the side of Diamante. He was predisposed to disbelieve this, as the source of this potentiality was the bloated grapevine of refugee gossip back in Cell One.

And he hadn't visited C1 since early summer...

The piglet snuggled into the breeder's lap tensed.

Owen froze. The muscles in his legs worked to keep the wheely chair still. Coeur's ear wiggled and it opened its eyes.

 _Thud. Scrape... scrape... boom._

 _Boom... boom... boom._

The ceiling creaked.

The man's eyes flicked to his partner pokémon and it looked back. A tiny point of light fuzzily glowed into existence within the pearl clamped carefully between its ears.

 _Boom_.

Owen swept his hand over his lap and upturned the blanket, pushing his chair back in one flowing movement. His spoink tumbled to the floor as the breeder dashed back into a dark corner, tossing the warm material over the desk. Immediately a warm, thick scent with an acrid tinge reached his nose as Owen ducked down and raised his arms in a barrier over his chest.

 **Boom boom BOOM CRACK.**

 **Creeeaaaaak.**

Harsh light cut into the sudden darkness through a thin crack in the ceiling. With the aged groan of frozen hinges, a trapdoor swung open and let the noonday sun blaze, white as snow, flood the bunker.

Coeur had hidden behind a tableleg. Owen couldn't move. His heart beat faster, flying through the national anthem and into a frenzied second rendition as shifts of snow rained from up high. The foot of an ancient wooden ladder slid down to stand on the carpet, a blisteringly cold breeze flowing with it.

A snow-covered boot stamped on the first rung down.

Another. The two boots paused as the intruder moved his upper body about, more sprayings of ice falling as their elbows tugged at something.

Owen didn't have any more time to react. A hand in threadbare gloves gripped one side of the ladder and a thickly coated body slid the rest of the way down, pulling on a thin cord.

Darkness rushed in with a loud _crunch_. There stood a tall shadow, brushing snow out of folds in clothing with the plastic scrape of actual winter gear. Owen held himself still, eyes flicking from the smouldering blanket to the man pulling layers of cloth away from his head and releasing a fairly pungent odour into the enclosed space.

"Aaah." His heart leapt, pausing a second in its frenetic beating.

The snowy man dropped a long scarf to the ground and unzipped something. The breeder watched a heavy, plump jacket fall to the carpet.

Boots smooshing over the plush fibres, scraping over wood as they walked further away. Owen waited a moment, swallowing down the lump in his throat, and lowered his arms to creep on fingers and toes.

The movement was easy and swift, wide-spread arms and legs to minimize noise. He slunk around the piled jacket and scarf with all the grace of a liepard.

The stranger's back was to him. He was fiddling with something... a faint flow of purple and pink in the corner of his eye alerted Owen to Coeur, who had come out from behind the desk. The breeder made a quick motion with his hand for the piglet to stop, to get down, and moved closer.

He could see the tags hanging out of the intruder's poofy ski pants. Owen gathered his feet underneath him, one at a time, hands planted to either side of his toes.

Nothing soft protecting the neck or kidneys. If it turned into a prolonged fight, which he hoped it wouldn't, there was the discarded scarf to consider as an inpromptu garrotte...

His muscles tensed. Now-!

Blind!

It was hot! Owen yowled, eyes squeezed shut, mid-flight with his hands coming up to weeping sclera-

A loud thud and crash. He landed on something with hard edges, and was startled from the earlier shock when the hard thing moved.

He could barely see now, squinting in the light, but Owen didn't forget that this little man was the enemy. A hairy forearm dashed against his face, bumping his nose and chin but with no real power behind it. The gleeful thought that maybe, perhaps the stranger was just as surprised as he was, fueled a powerful upright hook with his elbow into jutting bone.

"Aaahhmmf!"

His weight tossed left with a strange flick of limbs from the Flare agent under him. Owen used the momentum to roll and found his back against the wall, cold seeping through cloth.

It was still almost impossible to see, but a blur of something dark alerted his arm to come up and his body to sink down. A boot impacted the wall over the agent's head; glass smashed and tinkled over the carpet from two picture frames falling to their untimely deaths.

He hooked his arms over that boot. It drew him forward, but he channelled the many stubborn hatchlings he'd raised over the years and clung with the tenacity of an ekans.

It shook, but he gripped tighter. The boot in his hands stomped down, and the muscles in the leg moved in a very _particular_ way. Owen grit his teeth and let go, throwing himself back as the other boot came down where he used to be.

The ground came back into focus. The breeder blinked, looked up at his opponent with a glare enhanced by the shadow cast from his fringe.

And... stopped.

Their eyes were meeting. Owen stared. The stranger stared.

"S... Slate?"

"..."

Just then, the desk caught fire.

 _-stonetostone-_

"Perks of being in a snowy wasteland; lots of water."

Owen didn't wince at the forced cheer in his voice from sheer force of will. The man on the other side of the semi-melted camp desk didn't react at all.

With something potentially important on fire, and in the wake of their little bar fight, there hadn't been time to talk about it. Slate- he didn't let himself continue with 'stranger' or 'madman', however true or false that might be- had swept a huge armful of icy snow into the bunker. Owen used the scarf, unwrapped into a wider band, as a sort of waterskin to carry and pile the frozen water over the desk.

They worked together without a word. Papers were retrieved, burning embers tossed to be stamped out underfoot. Slate's raggedy locks swung freely around his face, and Owen noted how teal tips faded into viridian green as they clumped more thickly from the taller man's scalp. It looked like he hadn't brushed or even washed his hair in months.

With the camp desk dragged into the room's center, the two men stood in silence. Owen didn't feel as though words were... entirely necessary. The atmosphere was so thick with voices unspoken he could feel it, a heavy pair of phantom hands on his shoulders.

Slate continued to not speak. The breeder shifted and looked at the floor, hands in his pockets.

"S... sorry..."

Owen's head shot up. The other man had been looking down, too. He thought he might have seen a lower lip start to tremble.

"What... are you sorry for?" the breeder asked. He kept his words tight, focused. Maybe it was finally time to get answers from this person he was sure he knew.

Slate lifted his head. Stubble ran all the way down his neck, the longer stuff growing haphazardly around his mouth. A look of immense pain flashed across the scruffy survivor's face so quickly that Owen wasn't sure he'd actually seen it.

"Owen Rose, and not looking a day older," he muttered. A large hand ran down his face and neck with an audible scrape. "I thought I left you and everyone else back in Unova."

"Well, I'm not dead." Yet. It occurred to the agent that this may be a discussion better held while sitting. He moved around the stinking pile and nipped the corner of Slate's leather jacket sleeve before the older man saw it coming. Slate simply watched, wide-eyed, as he was directed to sit near the wall on a clean patch of carpet. Owen lowered himself to sit, too. "Nice of you to lie, though. I know I'm a sight."

The ragged man looked away. "How... how did you survive?"

"Maybe I'll tell you someday, Slate," Owen said. His fingers fiddled with a piece of melted plastic. "But answer my question first."

Slate paused. "I... I'm sorry. That I left. That... that I never said I was leaving."

A gentle buzz filled the quiet after that. Owen opened his lips to say something- once, twice, a third time- but nothing came out except for a confused hum.

The other man took in a deep breath. "I did some stupid things, Rose. I joined up with some... stupid people. And even now, I'm just... I'm not _doing_ anything. I'm not..."

"Not helping."

Those familiar grey eyes were so empty. Then they moved to Owen's chest and something moved, a surge of something that belied the soot and dirt and harshness of life around them.

"Not like you. You're doing something, Rose. And I want- I want in!"

* * *

 **Hello again, community.**

 **I have truly appreciated the two reviews left for our little story, and have been watching the hits and visitor counters climb higher and higher with every day.**

 **I will not state the numbers here, but we will soon reach a small statistical milestone. Some writers like to do something special for these points of time, and I admit, the idea sounds like a lot of fun. One or two personal projects relating to this story are already waiting to be published on my DeviantArt account; would you be satisfied with this when the time comes?**

 **Thank you for reading this tale so far. I have plans! Many, many plans for the future of my miniverse!**

 **Please continue to enjoy what I present to you today. It warms my heart.**


	6. Chapter 6

"No. Absolutely not."

The spaces between Slate's smile grew, his face slack. Those dimples had smoothed out, hidden behind the scruff covering his lips and chin.

"Wh-why not?!" It burst from him, dry lips pursing in the effort. A fervent gleam in his eyes made the man look ten years younger as Slate turned to face him directly. Owen found himself at a loss for words as his old friend transformed back into that rebellious kid from downtown cold storage. The slouch was so reminiscient of the leatherjackets climbing shipping containers and daring each other to throw slushy handfuls of snow at visitors...

"Because," Owen said, glancing at his feet. A silence grew after that word and the breeder added, "you're just a civilian. You don't know what you're getting into."

"You've got to be- come on!"

"You are!" Their voices rang out in the silence that fell between the two glaring men. Owen's skin prickled and he forced his stance to relax, having stood to match Slate's abrupt rush to pace around the cell. The bright black eyes of his friend gleamed in the dark of a corner, watching the taller man slope about.

The ragged man forced callused fingers through his hair, long strands dragging out to fall on the floor. "You don't know. You don't know."

"And you don't know what I've been through." Something in the breeder's voice drew Slate's troubled grey eyes his way. "Let me guess- you've been hiding out somewhere around here, all this time. You somehow survived _it_ , along with your old buddies, and found yourselves all alone."

Owen didn't speak again until his old friend reluctantly nodded, his head pulled unhappily to the side.

"And then you realized... hey, we're free! There's nothing stopping us now! No rules, no society, no law to make us toe the line. Right? You _celebrated_."

Slate blinked and swept his hair out of his face. "Now, I didn't-"

"But it didn't last you long enough," Owen continued, throat sore but tongue waving. "Soon it occurred to you that there wasn't anyone around you with a heart- with a thought to the future- and it all began to fall apart."

"No, I didn't mean-"

"Shut up." His face was set in stone. Slate's lips closed, in apparent belated surprise from the man himself. "You did some things you regret, to forget it all. Probably smashed in a few statues, you get my meaning?"

" _Owen_!" The vagabond's voice rang hollow, pinched as his face went a deadly pale. Owen wasn't feeling too well himself. That was... that was a little too far, maybe...

In the hush of that last regrettable comment, a little grey piglet hopped up to the breeder's knee. Its pearl was held carefully between small ears, their size belying their true power. He couldn't keep from looking down, meeting his small friend's eyes, and the emotion there made his shoulders flinch from sudden tension.

It gripped his pant leg. "Sppppooiii- _oiiiiiink_."

Own's stare relaxed into a gaze. They stayed that way for a while.

 _-stonetostone-_

Deep in the wintry wastes, a black ear twitched. Nose gleaming and frosty in the dim flourescent light, a reddish jaw slung wide, wet tongue licking some feeling into its teeth. The houndour sneezed. Its eyes gleamed.

The human by its side sipped from a steaming thermos. The heat radiating from the long legs was pitiful, by the pokemon's standards, but it knew not to complain. Even in all of this snow, Houndour sensed the warmth in the bodies of the living. Perhaps especially so; it could not smell after hours in the cold, but this preternatural knowing made its kind useful. It was glad to be useful.

Being younger and more energetic than the houndoom leader belonging to a powerful human, Houndour wanted to leave its post. To run up the hills, stare down and imagine it ruled the icy world with its flame and its bark, to explore and dig tunnels that would melt if it wasn't careful.

But this houndour was not so young as to be foolish. It sat, ignoring the wet crush of snow under its stubby tail. Nothing survived out here without the Pack.

It was only a small part of the strong whole. And the others? It knew they were cowards. But cowards were useful, in the same way that Houndour was useful. With them, any foe was prey. Without them, Houndour lost its usefulness and wouldn't live to know any dreams about the world beyond.

It sneezed again and rubbed a frozen paw on the dry end of its nose. Tiny icicles stung as they ripped away.

"It's so cold out here," said its human. A fluffy hood covered the two-leg's ears and head. Two shining eyes, flat and bland, read the landscape of rock and ice before them. Houndour wished its human would order them to go inside, where it could play, or maybe train. The muscles in its legs jumped all on their own. It sniffed and ignored the mucus dribbling into the wind, ears perked, eyes distant. "Houndour?" The human's hand crept to its jacket pocket.

It barked. Felt the glee of success, though the prey was only sighted, for the Pack began to howl and answer it. Bright flares of heat spotted around the valley made its heart soar.

A tinny squawk made Houndour snarl. "Disturbance in Area 4; report."

The human scrambled. It wore huge pieces of material on its hands, the agile fingers safe from biting cold. It cursed, threw a glove down, and seized the small black device that shrieked so unpleasantly. "Reporting from Area 4. Uh, my pokemon just barked. I think it saw something."

Houndour stopped listening. The other humans talked, and through them, the Pack knew. More than a bark, two-legs could speak without alerting prey through their devices. It licked its lips and allowed thin strands of drool to freeze in the snow.

"Houndour. Seek."

This was what it had been waiting for.

Suppressing the loud howl that rattled its chest with the longing for the hunt, Houndour bounded into the dark. Water pooled and rippled in the pawprints in the snow.

 _-stonetostonestonetostone-_

The silence hung, long since awkward and beyond.

Air having been spruced up with the entrance of his current human companion, Owen moved his dry mouth. He rubbed creases in the skin of his forehead. Something- something didn't feel right.

Maybe it was the collapse in the snow. Maybe it was finding out that an old childhood bully had somehow survived the apocalypse when his own friends, his family- Own rubbed the space between Coeur's ears, bumping the pearl with absent-minded fingernails. The little piglet kept perfect balance as it bounced lightly in place.

It could just be that he'd accused someone of being a murderer.

His other hand tightened on the corner of blanket poking up to his chest.

The man in question huddled in the opposite end of the cell. He'd even turned his back in a thoroughly bewildering action that affirmed how much Owen did not want Slate to go and get himself hurt playing Agent. A tangle of hair just above the collar of the vagabond's jacket made him wish there was a comb, a sink, something around here to bring some civilization in.

But these were distractions. Owen sighed. Tapped his friend on the head. Tossed the blanket aside with more energy than necessary.

Slate didn't move.

The hatchway swung open too easily. He'd pile more snow on top once they were out, keep everything secure for the next time- the next sorry agent to pass through. Coeur could jump out the hatch, but he didn't want the spoink to accidentally hurt itself. It held still in the red glow of a return command.

The gear left for use didn't close around the waist, and the beanie slipped down his ears, dangerously close to blinding him when the breeder took a heavy step. The waterproof pants had been stitched shut over a handful of long, ragged cuts, and the knees were worn down to the point of cold leeching into his knees. Yet Owen felt more prepared for this than he had upon arrival, upon receiving the command to come here in the first place.

Now there was something a little more immediate to protect. He was expendable. So was Coeur, to a lesser extent. But the man shivering in the aftermath of- of this? He was just a guy. Some- some poor punk. Lost in his own world.

"Come on, buddy," Owen mouthed, blinking in the dark. "We've got-"

BARK

Falling! Bang! Back of his head burst into agony! His heart skipped a few dangerous beats, the sky shrinking, snow falling all around him, his back-

Thud.

"Aaaagrghh!" Hurt! It. Hard to breathe! Owen's lips gaped and he wheezed, arms spread-eagle.

"Owen!"

A flash of light. Something on his chest. No breath.

The weight was gone. Owen took in a breath, pushing past the awful heaviness, heaved to sit up. Confused. Hand to his belt.

A battle. His mind ticked in. Two pokemon, a yellow one, a black one, fire. Flames and embers that spooled around the yellow ball. It split open and a purple fluid came out. The black one yelped awfully, the sound hurting his ears.

A hand on his arm. Pulling Owen up. He followed it, gripping the bicep with all the strength he could muster, forgetting to use the ball at his waist. Movement. Slap! Ow!

"Ow!" Owen repeated. He thought. Was that out loud?

"Owen! Get over here!"

Slate. His stench was unmistakeable. The wild-eyed figure dragged his unsteady feet behind the desk, tipped on its side to face the battlers. Owen peered over it. The yellow pokemon had a cone-shaped tail, which it used to strike the black dog. The dog barked, unharmed, and rammed its white skull into the yellow thing's belly.

"Do I need to slap you again? Owen!"

He shook himself. No time to get- get involved. How stupid was it, to stand like this, when they'd been discovered? A dread flow of icy water filled his stomach. Owen couldn't speak. His tongue stuck to dry teeth. Discovered.

Found. Flare. They were here.

The breeder looked down with the grubby hand pulling on his chin. A hole lay at their feet. It angled down, wide enough for a grown man to drop into. If one felt they could brave a potentially suicidal fall like that.

Wait. How was there a hole in HQ?

"Slate?" Owen's voice croaked. He didn't swallow, knew there wasn't time, brushed the pokeball holding his partner safe and sound. "What is this?"

"It's your way in." A sour tone in his voice accompanied the slam in Owen's lower back.

His knees buckled. With a scream, the breeder fell down, down into the dark. A bright flash of light showed the flailing limbs and frantic scratching at tunnel walls before fading into inscrutable black.

Slate watched. His face didn't change, not when he pulled the table over the hole and not when he gave his dunsparce half-hearted orders to coil up and wait.

As the toxins sapped away at the black hound and Dunsparce hummed with contained energy, the scruffy man sighed and looked up.

The hatch lay open. A tall figure stood above it.

Slate held up his hands and nudged Dunsparce with a boot. The houndour couldn't move to attack, but it still snapped and hunched aggressively. With a soft thump, the brilliant orange-red of a Flare suit glowed a hostile crimson in the darkness.

Dunsparce uncoiled, slow but sure. Slate held out his hands, palms-up. "Okay. You've got me. I'm sorry."

The Flare stepped closer.

* * *

 **Hello, readers.**

 **So. I stepped out of line! I didn't write for this story for some time. However, that trend will end.**

 **I intend to complete this story, upon which I will return, edit and reupload a better version of it.**

 **For now, please enjoy a new chapter. Thank you for reading, and please, leave your feedback for my perusal.**

 **(And though I have said that this will only be 6-7 chapters, that is not the case. One reason for my slow upload speed is that I attempted to finish this story as quickly as possible, attempting to avoid losing interest! We will see how many more chapters this story will take; but for now, let's enjoy the journey.)**

 **And enjoy the 10,000 word milestone!**


	7. Chapter 7

It awoke to an awful shrieking sound.

Wiggling little arms to regain balance, Coeur cried out. Its spring flexed and stretched, curling the sharp tip in nothing but air. That noise - it was wind!

Or was it - Owen? The spoink closed its eyes and focused on the world beyond itself. Fear defeated thought. Thought was the basis of psychic power. Without that power, its heart, and the heart of its human, was at risk. Spoink took in a breath and concentrated on the feeling of tension in its lungs. The sensation slowly morphed into a strong sense of energy. It opened its eyes, closed them at the terrifying sight of pitch blackness, and pushed.

Up, ignoring the ache as it passed the oversized brain. A dull pink glow through its eyelids made a little smile under its snout.

"Spooiiiiink!" Coeur released the power of its pearl. The shape of the tunnel, cylindrical, and the confusing lines and movement of a living thing below. Its mental presence was unmistakeably Owen. The spoink seized its human by the waist and energized his chest, soothing the abused muscle of his heart.

A side effect of this was that they fell together, now, and their speed decreased. As the hole began to curve up, gentle as a water slide, Coeur pushed its human against the 'floor' and allowed them both to slide.

Soon its spring found the earth again. Spoink began to hop. The relaxing jolt allowed a long sigh of relief from Coeur, and its pearl dimmed to a gentle pulse of purple.

A low groan echoed along the tunnel. Coeur's small ears twitched and it hopped forward, sniffing loudly. It didn't want to trip over one of Owen's absurdly long legs, but the steep angle of the floor made it difficult to keep steady. "Spoii oiii?" spoink called out.

"Uugrhh." Sharp prickles of pain in the human's mind made the piglet wince and shut off mental contact. There was a scraping sound, and a startled shout. The spoink tried to cover its ears, but its paws couldn't reach high enough. "Sp- Coeur?" Owen sounded bewildered. "Where- where's Slate? Is he okay?"

"Spoink oii," it shrugged. The trainer made more confused noises, and a quieter yelp with the sound of gravel sliding downhill.

"We're - in a cave? Slate, he, he pushed me!"

The walls and floor crunched with dry grit in the 'ribbing', a sort of ripple left from a pokemon using the Dig technique. The raised edges felt rather damp in comparison; Coeur felt this through the sensitive hairs coating its spring. It took this in and bounced over the dim outline of a knee. Owen blinked in the light of its pearl. "Spoink, spooi oiiiiii oin oinnnk."

"Yeah..." His hands scrunched into the soft earth, pushing as the breeder winced and climbed to his feet. The top of his head hit the roof. Owen yelped.

"Spoiiii," Coeur grumbled, butting its pearl into its human's knee.

The two-legs scrubbed palms on the worn knees of his pants and hunched, rubbing the back of his spoink's head. "Sorry, buddy," he breathed. "You don't like loud noises, right? We should go. There's nothing we can do for Slate now."

"Oinnn." The psychic piglet chirped. It wiggled its arms and focused on the dark of the tunnel ahead.

 _-stonetostone-_

Up and down their voyage went, the walk going on and on with no sign of light or end to the darkness. It sucked at the eyes, pulled on the spirit, and the cold of the snow above leeched slowly into the muscles. The bend of his neck had begun to ache some internimable length of time ago, and his boots sank in the loamy earth with each grinding step.

Owen kept his mouth shut. Unfortunately, he didn't need to speak to be a distraction from the mission. "Spoiiii oiin," his friend said, tugging on the end of his pants.

"Don't mind me, keep your eyes forward."

"Spoiii?"

"Yes, really." The agent paused to wipe shaggy brown hair clear of sweat. The air tasted pretty awful. He wondered, for a moment, how much longer this would be - and how much air was left in it. "Okay. Coeur, can you sense the end of this place? Are we nearly there?"

The grey pokemon flickered. Pink energy rippled from its pearl, outlining the small body with an intense blue sheen. In the new light, the spoink's scrunched eyes and stern expression darkened its face. A tiny white spark appeared in the center of the gemstone. Coeur blinked. "Spoi!"

"Wh - hey! Wait for me!"

It paid no heed. Springing with new energy, almost perpendicular to the floor, the spoink leapt into the open reaches of tunnel. The light source went with it. Owen nearly tripped over a particularly large ripple of dirt and struggled to jog, breathing hard and flexing his neck in the new space. The ceiling opened up, and the breeder could run properly, pumping his arms to try and go faster.

Coeur skidded to a stop, keeping its balance with no sign of hardship. It was looking up. Up at a bare patch of stone showing from the soft earth. "Spoinn," it said quickly, pointing up with both arms.

"Ye - yes, yes, good job." Owen bent over, secretly enjoying the stretch across his knees and touching the floor with his fingertips. He flexed his hands and peered up. It was hard to see. Dim light may have affected his vision. The breeder hoped, gave a little prayer that it wouldn't affect the mission too badly, and made a scooping gesture with his fingers at the roof. Coeur watched, large nose twitching. When Owen did nothing else, it nodded and activated its power. Soft pink reached up to scrape on stone, gravel flaking off like dead skin as it flowed back and forth.

He kept watch - or told himself that he was.

It took time. The sound, like steel on steel, set his teeth on edge. A grimace on Coeur's face showed the creature's own distate, but to its credit, the slow back-and-forth slewing didn't even pause. Owen wasn't sure how deep it went, how high they needed to dig, but most places built underground had powerful and thick walls. He suspected that it may take more than a few hours to get in, excluding any breaks for his partner to rest.

This is why Owen had to bite through his glove to keep from shouting when Coeur squealed and was showered with much larger chunks of rock. "Coeur! Are -" He mastered himself. Bit fiercely into his gloved index finger. The spring and delicate ears showed clear beneath the rubble, but the pearl...

The spoink groaned in a high pitched squeak. It wiggled its ears - and started. "Spoii?!"

He had to help. Couldn't leave it to find out after panicking some more. It was a small pile, but the little pokemon was caked in it, the grey dust matting the fine hairs covering its body. He could feel the difference. Swallowing back the pangs, Owen knelt by his partner and lifted it free. The sad little pokemon wiggled in his hands until he let it free, and immediately began to bounce. The relief on its face was palpable.

Coeur didn't need to look, but it twirled around anyway. A low keen of misery escaped its snout and struck Owen right in his abused heart.

"I'm sorry," the breeder whispered. He went to rub its ears. Paused. Thought better of it. "Coeur, I'll need to return you now. You can't fight in this condition."

The spoink growled. Owen's will to fight lowered at the fierce expression on the piglet's face. Though it bounced, harder than usual, impacting the dirt in a ring shape, Coeur kept his eye contact. "Spoii oiii poi spoiinkpooi," it hissed, "Oiii oiioi ooinkkksp sppspppoo."

"You - you're a -" No. It wasn't. He couldn't say that. Owen closed his eyes, looked at the ground, avoided those soulful black eyes. "You can't help me without it. Please, Coeur. Please go back in. We can't afford a return signal inside of that base. You know they can - they can pick it up. We -"

He shut his mouth. Nearly bit his tongue.

Voices. Owen gestured frantically, stood, cursed internally at the rough scrape of grit underfoot. Coeur looked panicked, nose flaring and hopping to standing head height. A touch on his mind made the man still, and he froze in place. The spoink did the same. That touch... he glanced down.

Psychic power. And familiar - his pokemon could still use its power without it?

The walls upstairs must have been thin. The voices grew louder, as if the speakers were standing right next to him, but no light broke down upon him. Owen would have bit his lip, but to his gratitude, Coeur held his limbs in a strong mental grip. He took a slow, deep breath. It was okay. They had faced situations like this.

Similar. Never so dangerous - or, dangerous, but never so essential.

Owen was important to the last living people and pokemon in freedom. If they made it out of here... well. Retirement wasn't on the list of options, particularly for a successful agent. But he might move Coeur into the underground pastures, where the spoink could finally contribute to the growing genetic pool. And most of all, where it would be safe.

This was no occupation for a pokemon. Humans did this. It wasn't - fair - that the greatest casualties were inflicted on the most innocent, perhaps the most gullible of creatures.

Pokemon were capable of terrible things. But, personally... Owen couldn't imagine them doing any of the things he'd seen over the last years. And crime was always so much more efficient with a guiding hand.

A numbness in his shins had the breeder raise a leg and gingerly put it back down. He looked up - and then to Coeur. It looked to be breathing hard, hunched over and sweating. Owen wished it would do as it was told.

Even exhausted, the spoink always had a tight connection with his mind. It stared with hard little black eyes and sprung up. Landing on the pile of rubble, about a foot high, Coeur coiled and flung itself up. The small grey form shot into the hole in the roof and disappeared from sight.

Owen held his breath, hugged his arms, fingers tight on elbows. Nothing. No sound.

No crash. A better landing than last time.

"Spooii oii," came a harsh whisper from above. He nodded. Without the light of the psychic pearl, Owen couldn't see if Coeur responded - but he certainly felt the sudden weightlessness in his arms and legs.

It took a lot out of his friend. Owen gathered it up in his arms, thought better of it, and dumped the pokemon onto the ground. It bounced from the impact, and began to hop on the spot. He raised his eyebrow at it, completely serious, and jerked his chin. The piglet sent a positive niggle to his mind and led the way to a closed door.

A brass handle. Glass window in a small rectangle, head-height. He peered through it, careful to angle his chest to the side in case of passerbys. Mustard yellow walls, dark wood lining the sides of the floor, chequered black and white tiled floor. It gave the distinct impression of a scientific institution, if a little old fashioned.

Only the scent of dust in this room. Owen glanced about, a more detailed look-over with the light pouring in from the window.

Clearly untouched for some time. Manilla folders, boxes, some opened, some not. In a place so far underground, he had perhaps assumed that more activity and - well, life, would be present in a Flare laboratory.

They must be on a different level. The most precious hidden things would be the best protected.

Testing the door handle, it barely twisted in his hand. Locked.

For the moment, that was good. Owen nodded and smiled at Coeur. The piglet hopped, furry spring quiet on the concrete floor. Its ears perked up at his glance.

 _Watch for anyone coming._ The breeder thought the line through again, more intently. Coeur squeaked. _Look for any symbols. Pokeballs. Rhydon. Touch any papers. Don't touch any buttons._

Unfortunately, very few pokemon could learn how to read. Psychic types, while often well developed in the mind, still lacked a certain something to make that final leap to sentience. Owen didn't think of it much. Pokemon had other charms.

This situation had been repeated in the past, however. Coeur could not read, could not learn to do so without specific examples of what it needed to look for. But... in knowing this, many scientists and other educated types marked their work in ways an intelligent pokemon could use. He thumbed a page with a red silhouette of a pokeball. The title mentioned geology. Owen dropped it, and with a belated thought, skidded it into the hole in the floor with his boot.

They had time. The hole shouldn't be discovered, not until Slate - was properly subdued, taken back to the Flare base and processed. Flare didn't care for secret bases so close to their own. If they were lucky, the evidence would get blown up without anyone getting curious.

And taking efforts to be thorough, perhaps find intelligence that still hadn't been found by the resistance? Worth the danger. Worth risking everything.

But not for much longer. He had a job to do.

Owen caught his friend's eye with a gesture. A slight pressure on the back of his head marked the piglet's attention. The series of images and words floated across his mind with practised unfocus.

"Spoi!"

He jumped. Coeur didn't seem abashed at the noise.

"Coeur, shut up." His breath hissed through clenched teeth. "You need to find what I can't. I have to find those lost pokemon, and you need to look for anything, anything at all that we can use. You know-"

"Spoiii," Coeur spat back.

"You know what's at stake!"

Desperation. Loneliness. A glimmer of a tear on the spoink's eyelashes. His heart shivered, and Owen clasped the skin over it, material atwist. A quirk of his bottom lip developed into a scowl. Coeur's eyes had no regret, no shame in them. Nothing for using such an underhanded tactic against its own partner.

The breeder stood. A swish of cold-weather gear followed his strong lope to the door. The spoink hadn't moved except to bounce on the spot, a real tear sliding down its fat nose.

Owen made a swooping gesture with his hand, twisting in an odd pattern. Coeur didn't move. Not for a long moment.

But, as that tear dropped to the floor and marked the dust, its head bowed.

A click came from the handle.

It felt like nothing through his thick glove. Owen couldn't look away. That face was too small. Too soft. Too reminiscient - hurt - innocent. Hurting. Because of him.

This was the only way. The best way, to keep it alive.

A sinking feeling in his heart accompanied the swift movement into the hallway. He closed the door in that silent way he'd learned in sweeter times.

Now an empty hallway, and it was quick work to move along, head ducked to his chest.


	8. Chapter 8

He lost count.

Count of rooms. Count of stairs. The numbers didn't matter. They fled his mind at the first cries, the second glimpse of flesh and stone becoming one.

It wasn't a secret among the survivors as to the fate of any captured people or pokemon, but... Owen didn't want to think of it. He couldn't form any kind of strategic evalutation of how these poor beasts were treated. It beggared the mind. His skin prickled with unease and disbelief at the closed door with its miniature window, the first of sheet metal corridors. He was not a man to cast feeling on others, but.

But he hated them. He wanted to hurt them.

A wild screech sent tremors through his heart. Owen gasped and looked down, away, anywhere. He wanted to run. Coeur. He'd left his best friend alone. In this - place.

But this was the first time Owen had seen it for himself. And who knew? Observation could be useful, if he ever got back to base, mind intact. And so the man edged himself up, curling fingertips into the windowsill, taking his time and cursing under his breath. He peered into the room.

A long, cream tail thrashed up, down. A green coated fellow paced around the debased cat, scribbling on a clipboard - no, a datapad. The screen's glow lit the hospital mask and the dark hollows of her eyes. He could see the bend of her outfit now, close to the waist but still less revealing than expected.

Owen took in everything he could. And then he dropped. Legs numb, unfeeling, his stomach felt like cold, scrambled eggs.

But through the thick door, and the floor that continued from hallway. Footsteps. Clicking, the heels of hard shoes, purposeful and heading straight for him.

His arms were working. Owen pulled himself up, clinging to the doorframe.

But his legs still did not. Tasting the rising panic, acidic on his tongue, Owen tried to take a step. A pitiful, rasping mew from behind the window, and he couldn't hold on anymore. He let go and slumped. Made a token effort to pull himself out of the doorway. Slid a few inches on polished floor.

Owen could feel it. This was the moment, the one every refugee knew may come one day.

But he wouldn't go without a fight. His knuckles showed yellow and pale beneath the skin of his fists. This would be a deed for all, for everyone who'd ever suffered at the hands of Flare. A small, but deliberate blow.

He wanted this woman to come out. Owen twisted his neck as far as it would go, fixing the space he imagined would appear when the door opened.

He listened.

The footsteps stopped.

A light scuff on the ground. Cool air flowed from beneath the metal, a gap for ventilation - and, he imagined, out of incompetence. Why, if he just had a gastly -

"YyyyOOOOoooowlll!"

The shriek rose the hairs on the back of his neck. Owen's legs turned to jelly.

An annoyed sigh. Grit grinding underheel; footsteps. Away from the door. His heart thudded. Staring down, unable to blink.

"Will you last much longer?"

A loud hiss met the feminine voice, along with a sharp scraping sound. Owen paused, put his face to the door and peered under it. Cool, dry air blasted his eye, but he blinked furiously to overcome it. His heart thudded again, but this time, with a will.

It was a persian. An angled face, black nose and thick whiskers sprouting from the muzzle. The tail he'd seen was dragging on the floor. Its curled end was dark grey. Stone.

Intelligent red eyes met his, so quickly, as if it had been waiting for him. Owen knew every method, every trick to gain a pokemon's trust from the moment of their birth to the often savage ends of their wild cousins' lives. But this one?

It initiated. It blinked, slowly. He blinked back. And then it arched its neck, stared up and out of sight - perhaps at the woman, whose black shoes stood in that direction - and snarled.

Red crackles of light fizzled in and out of its fur. The gem imbedded in the cat's forehead seemed to glint with a strange power.

The persian bared its fangs, tongue curling in to protect the vulnerable throat.

But as it released the power - as the scientist woman staggered awkwardly back - the cry died. Stone grew up with astonishing speed, freezing it dead. Still. A fantastic statue of the pokemon stood in a fearsome pose, eyes fixed somewhere down and to its left.

The residual power disippated as if it was nothing. And the Flare agent held a datapad loosely against her leg, other hand on hip.

Owen didn't wait to hear the crowing over another dead innocent.

His feet finally obeyed the fear jumping in his chest like a thunder wave, and the breeder was off, leaping one foot at a time with extreme care to land soft.

It was harrowing, and in the contained atmosphere of the buried base sweat crawled out undercollar to make his skin itch. Owen didn't pause to scratch, but from time to time did try and mop the salty fluids from his face. The sleeve of his garment was waterproof. He didn't miss the absurdity of the situation, but the memory of that cold, chiseled face, frozen in fear and fury forever killed his wish to lighten the mood.

There were more crimes against nature, further grotesqueities, but Owen hardened his heart against them. There was a purpose for his visit here. A way to save some, to redeem a little of the human spirit involved in this madness.

And eventually, Owen found his chance.

 _-stonetostone-_

The impassive yellow faces shone flat and dull in the unnatural lighting. Covered with fingerprints and a few strands of blond hair, he could nevertheless see himself, rounded and strange. The pale, thinned lips, wide eye whites and blurry outline seemed obvious to him. The man staring through and into him moved something around in his mouth.

A third fellow was holding up Slate's arm, running a small device uncomfortably close to skin. He didn't seem to notice the smell rising from between the folds of the scarf tied around his shoulders.

They continued to say nothing, unless there was a mind-reader somewhere to bridge the gap and make their new captive nervous.

It was cold. He didn't mind.

 _-stonetostone-_

He didn't believe in a higher power. Never went to church. Felt convicted in his lack of belief when the world ended.

Yet his ears popped and he could have sworn to hear choirs of angels in the dark of the place he was looking for.

Owen couldn't breathe. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and he swallowed, crouching behind a bookshelf. Heat hammered in between the pops and he rubbed his chest.

This was it. A new chance. He didn't dare hope, but some force of joy and adrenalin gripped him tight until he squealed. Just a little bit.

The breeder glanced around the shelf and blinked in the low light. Unless he'd breathed in something that messed with the mind, all of them were there. Numbers uncounted. Shining, gleaming metal balls, a variety of coloured hemispheres. A drop of moisture tickled the hairs on his chin. Owen rubbed the itch away and closed his mouth. A blankness took the points of his face.

This was it.

Any kind of technology, eyes and hands, might rest in this place. His first slow step deeper in made no sound on the carpet. No stone or steel, nor wood. Owen wondered if this was deliberate, but the waiting pokeballs pulled him forth, eyes shining in the dim fluroescence of a light outside the door.

They sat behind a film of glass. Some didn't shine at all. Owen flinched. His eyes skated away from the grey grain of a heavy stone and squinted at the case. A display stand? His breath caught.

Brains as scrambled as his finger movements, he scrabbled for the lock. It was small. A latch, meant for show, ridged in the shape of a pyroar's face. He dug a nail under it.

Pulled. It clicked.

The case swung open.

He couldn't. Bare to touch them. A palm skittered over the smooth surface of a - what was it - a moon ball. Strange to see in Kalos, but he knew of suppliers who created perfect facsimiles, so perhaps that was it. Those thoughts disappeared in a rising burst of joy as he held it in two hands, smiling at the perfectly painted crescent moon.

"I'm going to get you out," Owen said as matter-of-factly as he could. His throat clenched. There it was. Warmth, a mild buzz in the steel.

Like a pokenav, you could always tell when it was still alive.

Twelve pokeballs to a case. Two or three - stones - in each batch. There must have been a hundred cases, all lined with red velvet. Some had to be smashed open. He apologised in hushed breaths to the little ones who fell as he broke their chains and smashed the thin wooden legs.

Noise didn't matter. Nothing mattered but for clasping each one to his chest, whispering praise and condolences to them.

Thirty were cold. He gathered those, too.

Soon five cases piled high in minimized balls, and Owen stared at them. His legs held steady. The second-to-last stage of the plan held true now. Now, it was time to turn the fangs of justice against the - the foul criminals, those murderers!

Without a further thought, his hand lashed out. Caught the first ball on the pile. The whitewash glowed eerily in his grip and Owen looked down at it, his face caught in the rictus of a smile.

"It's your time." Your chance.

It flew up, maximised, and split open. The bright flash threw black and blue spots in his vision and the impact of something made the floor tremble.

Heavy breathing blew hot air over his face. Owen gave his head a vigorous shake and blinked hard. A big, round object made his eyes cross, only inches from his nose.

"Rrrrraaaagghhhr..."

White eyes stared through him. Faint tinges of red streaked across them. Bloodshot. Owen stepped back, tread muffled. It didn't react.

Huge. Bipedal, small arms, a round blue domed skull surrounded by wide spikes. It had fearsome fangs protruding from a closed mouth. It waved its head with casual strength, nostrils flickering in the depth of its chesty breaths.

Owen knew what it was. His heart leapt like a wingull.

"Rampardos..."

The wide head stopped. It didn't turn to look at him, but Owen knew it was listening. A strange tilt of the flat-topped head drew his gaze but the breeder forced himself to look at those unnerving white eyes. "I'm Owen. I'm a Breeder. A friend."

Silence. It wasn't making those loud, huffy sounds anymore.

"You're in a secret base, with other captives, and probably left to die." His tongue felt strange and he was talking too loudly, but it rushed out and he couldn't stop. "I'm with the resistance. The only hope for you, for your kind, and I'm here to rescue you. I'm letting you-"

It rushed forward. His chin snapped back. Owen almost yelped but the fear, thankfully, silenced him.

Its blank face shoved into him. He couldn't feel any muscle in the towering rampardos, but it was a rock type, and he knew how hard the skin of those beasts could be. A deep rumble from within the living fossil had his heart skip a beat, the flutter of skin as nothing against stony hide. "Please, please ram- pardos," Owen gasped. The sharp point of what he guessed to be a knee spike easily pierced his waterproof jacket and drew a line through the skin of his chest.

Its jaws opened. He saw the round mouth, the small, sharp fangs rimming the hungry throat and those two huge chompers angled to crush his skull -

He couldn't move. Couldn't - breathe. It pressed closer. A terrified scream in his head, squeezing his eyes shut against a bright flash, something warm and thick collecting in the back of his throat -

Red. Softer. Owen stared.

Gone.

An impact.

Owen sat on the carpet. His back pressed into the wall that the pokemon had tried to - to crush him against. As if he was a twig. Like he deserved it.

Something touched his knee. He jumped. It retreated, but he could still feel it. Somehow.

"Spoii."

Soothing. His heart jumped again, as it had been for the past hour and a half. Mid-leap it settled. A cool, warm hand drew it to still and to beat like the living thing it should be. Owen gasped. It felt so good. His heart. His Coeur.

"Coeur."

"Spoin."


End file.
